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help with paradox of time arcanum

02-21-2017, 10:44 AM

hi guys
yesterday we played another session, and, because it s the first time we r playing mage ( after have played only vampire the masquerade for lot of times after D&D for a lot of years), one of my player was forced to paradox, multiple time. last time i rolled 8 dice and after mana spent and wisom roll, 2 successes occured

disclaimer: just to note why he was forced to paradox
the setting is 1817, london, but now they are in french
this player has the time arcanum. They were traking down their foe (a mage), and the journey conducted them to an ancient graveyard where the enemy went the day before, doing a ritual to open a gate and travel through the death realm ( underground?). He left there some anchored ghosts to inform him in case someone investigates in this place.
So, they walk around talking with people in the graveyard and doing some searches through the area. Then, one of them use his power to ask some stuff to the ghosts ( there is a werewolf in the group that can see ghosts and speak with them). Of course, the ghosts warned their master, but they didn t know this.
After a couple of hours, during the night, they came back to graveyard and used their death spells to speak another time with ghosts and they realize that they were there for a reason. But the ghosts tried to stop them, fighting them and when the stuff started to going bad for players, the time arcanum player used "shifting sands" to go back "before" they spoke with ghosts. Some paradoxes occured, but he managed to absorbe.
When they back to rest, they realized that the werewolf spoke with ghosts hours before and he tried to "shifting sands" again, apllying more reaches and creating a paradox. After roll, i did 2 successes and the spell was successfully casted

now, it s the first time that paradox occured, and i wanna give them the feel that is not safe to play too much with magic and paradox. Beside, i won t admit the rule to scratch the condition from this soul and i still wanna aplly anomalies
i have some nasty ideas, but i wish to hear other thoughts about you can manage a situation like this
don t get me wrong: i don t wanna punish my player for this good tactics, but i don t even wanna see him having a " gold card" to use any time he wants. Of course, stuff will happen later, but for now, i m just happy to apply some nasty effects to him
thank you

Did he release or contain the Paradox? If he released it you have Reaches you can choose to apply to or negate from his spell. If he contained you have a few Paradox Conditions you can choose to apply to him.

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he cointained it, but i still wanna apply the anomalies even if shouldn t be applied
now, i have to reaches and one condition to apply..
here my thought:
the group is formed by 3 people, 2 mages and one werewolf
now, the 2 mages had lived last 2 in-game years togheter, they know each others very well and they are friends. The werewolf instead, is the new entry by preview session and they are just knowing him. My idea is to spend one reach to change the target from the player that cast it to the werewolf. In this way he has to explain to his new friend what happened and have to be believed by them in wich they don t trust very much. This is the first part
with the second reach i have no idea what to do
for the conditions, i wish to create some temporal loop that affect the player who launched the spell

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No excuses. In my hoping on paradoxes should be quite terrifying. I can t see any problem casting paradoxes.. The other version of mage punished more who abuses of paradoxes..
And btw, what is otherworldly omen dogs?

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It's something of a general recurring phenomenon in folklore, particularly around Great Britain — the Grim from Harry Potter draws on the same concept.

It's particularly salient here because there are at least two Lodges of werewolves who hunt prey that messes with time, one of which (the Tindalosi) is a Lovecraft reference. (Though I admittedly have a very tiny personal stake in the concept.)

Resident Sanguinary Analyst
Currently Consuming: Changeling: the Lost 1e

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Why are you asking about the rules if you want to do something no matter what you learn? If it's what you think is good for the story, the go for it. Keep in mind that doing this even after the player chose how they wanted to deal with the paradox is taking away player agency and choice, railroading them into the story that you want regardless of what they did.

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I'm not sure what you're looking for, you're just saying you don't want to follow the rules of how Paradox works so what non-rule ideas do we have? I mean, if you're throwing the rules out anything goes. The spell turns into a gold fish, badabing, badabum and done.

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no, u didn t understand.. i v just said that i'll apply anomalies even if i shouldn t ( because he tried to containe paradox). Not a big deal.
But, in any case, i should apply a condition to him and i m try to create a funny condition that reflect the spell he casted.. i was thinking about a time loop, because he has abused of the "shifting sand". As i said, he applied 3 reaches on top of the free granted ( and casted already 3 paradoxes in the same scene).
hope is more clear now

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My suggestion was something akin to the Monster Nemesis Condition from the Alexandrian Dark Era, which assembles a warped creature out of nearby animals to hound the mage's steps until it's killed (no easy task, as it's immune to control by the Arcana) or falls apart (which takes a fair amount of time).

Resident Sanguinary Analyst
Currently Consuming: Changeling: the Lost 1e

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A. The character's past has been rewritten. They've experienced something that didn't happen for the rest of reality.
B. The character has been dislodged from time. They may be intermittently replaced by their future or past versions.
C. Their personal perception of time may fluctuate, slowing down or accelerating at inconvenient moments. The effect is nauseating.
D. They may get short bouts of interference from other timelines, from seeing different content on photographs to having conversations with alternate people.
E. Their enemies benefits from localized time loops. An intruder enters a sealed Sanctum; they run to the door and by opening it let the intruder in.

You can rewrite these to be potentially beneficial. The character might find a way to utilize the time loops.

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I'm not sure what you're looking for, you're just saying you don't want to follow the rules of how Paradox works so what non-rule ideas do we have? I mean, if you're throwing the rules out anything goes. The spell turns into a gold fish, badabing, badabum and done.

Why are you asking about the rules if you want to do something no matter what you learn? If it's what you think is good for the story, the go for it. Keep in mind that doing this even after the player chose how they wanted to deal with the paradox is taking away player agency and choice, railroading them into the story that you want regardless of what they did.

no, u didn t understand.. i v just said that i'll apply anomalies even if i shouldn t ( because he tried to containe paradox).

I disagree, they understand perfectly, and their points are valid. In particular the removal of the players' agency can produce very bad habits in players that the rest of the gaming community and future versions of yourself will have to deal with. My advice? Have player choices matter, if you're going to have house rules have them written down so the players can know them and to keep yourself honest, and don't be overly invested in particular outcomes for the story, other than the vague goal of a story that is entertaining, and/or meaningful.

As far as Hounds of Tindalos? Possibly make containing more damaging as a house rule to increase the temptation to release the paradox, and wait for the player to make that choice, and then use the Hounds like a set mouse trap. I like to set my plot important temptations so that any member of the group can choose it, because there is always a player character that'll bite something and they drag everyone else into the plot. Setting different temptations that appeal to each player character is also a valid strategy, but could lead to multiple people in the boat having fish on the line to to speak.

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Why do you say so? I clearly said what the anomaly applied is. This is not a meaningless choice to twist plot. It s important. As I said, changing the subject of the spell by caster from werewolf ( in which they don t trust really much, as I wrote) means that, once he ll back in time, he will need (donno if it s the right verbal time to point an action that will be done in the past, that acts in the future ) to convince them about what will happen. I don t see it like a cheat. But a way to make story.
A way to improve the feeling about my 2 mages players and the new-come werewolf.. Is it so weird?
And by the way, why so many problem with that? In my second post i wrote the reasons i made this choice. I dont know if you have red it, but seems to be reasonable from my prospective, isn't it?
Maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't have mentioned this particular detail, because the answers received are going in this direction, while my struggle was a paradox conditions good to apply.

Thus, we r in the first run of mage, we used to play "wod" before and "the masquerade". On top of that, seems that the second edition has not been translate in my language and my players refused to read the manual (one in particular Doesn't know English).
I explained them rules and if you knew them you would probably agree with my decision to do not explain too many rules. But doesn't t matter. Ain't the thread s task.

First of all the ideas of Teatime are what I was looking for. I m gonna arrange them.. For the hounds, instead, I v considered this choice, only if this player will abuse more and more during the chapter
thank you for answers